In Their Shoes: Coming closer to children and youth
 HIVAN's
commitment to providing children and youth with
a platform to express their experiences of the
world, and to gain the skills to do so, was advanced
by two forum sessions held during the last several
months.
The first was a two-day Child and Youth Research
Forum held in November 2004, at which a range
of community-based practitioners and academic
researchers shared their knowledge and stories
with guests representing many different social
sectors. Presentations were given on the latest
findings regarding prevention of mother-to-infant
transmission of HIV, anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy
for children in poor settings, sexuality education
with disabled youth, how to include youth in HIV/AIDS
management programmes, the impact of the epidemic
on housing for families, family-based interventions,
and the use of photography for learners to understand
life in the centre of the epidemic.
A key topic at the Research Forum was the stigma
of HIV/AIDS as it affects young people, in particular
orphans of AIDS and vulnerable children such as
child migrants and children heading households.
Two highlights of the overall programme were the
performance of an isiZulu play, composed by girls
and boys from HIVAN’s “Leaders of
Tomorrow” project, about their lives in
Magangangozi, Bergville, and 10-year-old Siphelele
Ndlovu’s launch presentation of a 34-page
illustrated booklet he authored, entitled “Babiza’s
Story”, which relays his personal account
of how HIV/AIDS has touched his life.
 The
November Forum established a clear focus on human
rights, participatory processes and the cultural
arts for the HIVAN series of Youth Forum sessions
planned for 2005. In March, HIVAN’s Community,
Arts and Advocacy and Sectoral Networking Units
partnered with the World Conference on Religions
for Peace (WCRP) to co-host the first day-long
programme in a series called “Learning together
for the Future”, for a limited group of
KZN secondary school learners. Devised and co-ordinated
by the CAAU’s Artists’ Action Around
AIDS team, with the help of peer facilitators
from other partner organisations, the main work
of the programme was a guided journey for self-expression
on the theme of “The Landscape of My Life”.
This involved dividing the learners into smaller
groups who worked on creating collages (pictures
made up of cuttings from magazines and decorated
with crayons and colour-pens), which described
their own lives and dreams. This was followed
by naming parts of the pictures, sharing the ideas
behind them with their peers, and team representatives
presenting these to the gathering. All the ideas
were explained as either mountains (problems),
bridges (plans) or valleys (goals), and a large
wall-poster was used for building this communal
“life landscape”.
In this way, the workshop journey moved from
the girls and boys as individuals, into teams
of fellow-learners, and finally to the full workshop
group. It showed them how to work alone by going
within themselves and finding their own identity
and voice, and then working with each other to
make shared decisions. No specific focus was aimed
at HIV and AIDS; the participants could express
any and all issues lives that were important to
them. At all times, the peer facilitators were
nearby to encourage, advise and support them through
the process, and several teachers were guest observers.
At the end of the day, the learners were given
a toolkit for their schools and community centres,
and were asked to share their workshop experience
with their classmates and families. They were
also invited to contribute their own written piece
for publication in Sondela.Kyle-Ben Snyders from
Durban’s Holy Family College sent us his
thoughts:
I didn’t really know what to expect
when I entered the Temple David hall to attend
the Youth Forum. The first thing I thought was
– oh no, here we go, all these co-ordinators
who look very strict, and one has an American
accent, oh dear - kind of thing. After the initial
introductions, it turned out they were a bunch
of helpful and open-minded individuals, the respectable
kind, you know? I relaxed at the realisation of
this. And started having fun.
 We
were split off into groups, made up of people
from different schools, which was cool because
I got to meet some interesting people and got
a good idea of how other people from different
environments think and behave. It made a good
dynamic, because the whole forum was all about
taking ideas, discussing and combining them to
turn those same ideas into something that affects
things on a global scale.
It started by everyone working on their own
personal collage, about things in their life that
affect them and things they believe in - because
it all starts with the individual! Then groups
exchanged ideas and make a list of all the ideas
they had collectively. We then changed those ideas
into global ideas, so things like "Buddha"
became "Religion" and "Spiritual
Development", "Bananas" became
"Nutritional Food" and "Healthy
Lifestyle" and so on and so on. We took these
ideas up to the front and presented them to the
rest of the groups. [We did a lot of this - I
mean, a lot. But it was fun going up and making
people laugh about issues that negatively affect
millions of people a year].
We finally took these ideas and split them
between three categories - Mountains: a problem
(hard to climb over), Bridges : a solution (a
way of getting over the mountain) and Valleys
: goals (at the end of the mountain, you'll get
to your valley). Some very relevant issues that
I had never really thought about came up as mountains.
Some very clever bridges were suggested and some
nice valleys described.
I felt quite enlightened coming out of the
Forum, as I'd met new people and had a huge paradigm
shift in my view of the world. I really can't
wait for the next one. Thank you HIVAN!
A second Forum day will be held in mid-2005.
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